Portland Center Stage

Marty Hughley | The Oregonian [Review 23 Apr 2013]

Principles are important. But you can’t live in a principle, you have to live in a house.

Some variation of that idea is expressed in both Act I and Act II of Bruce Norris’ Pulitzer-winning play “Clybourne Park,” which flips the script on the themes of race, real estate and social justice of the classic “A Raisin in the Sun”—first as an alternate view into the original 1959 story, then as a sequel set 50 years later. Part of Norris’ point is that the intersection of principle and practicality can be a confusing place, complicated by self-interest, group interest or even mortgage interest. There’s also the idea that territorialism is the principle that trumps all.

Rebecca Jacobson | Willamette Week [Review 23 Apr 2013]

Bruce Norris’ Clybourne Park—the first work to win the triple crown of the Pulitzer, Tony and Britain’s Olivier—is one of the most produced plays among regional companies. I haven’t seen the play elsewhere, but I’m sure Portland Center Stage’s bracing production could contend with the best of them: Norris’ script is acerbic, smart and frequently uproarious, and the PCS cast, under director Chris Coleman, is superb. As in The Pain and the Itch, produced last year at Third Rail, Norris goes for the jugular. But unlike in that play, Clybourne’s characters retain shreds of likeability even while telling racist jokes and treading taboo waters. All told, it makes for a full-throttle experience that claws at our conceptions about race, prejudice and social propriety.